


Brave Face

by nuricurry



Category: Saint Seiya Omega
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-10 00:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2003778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nuricurry/pseuds/nuricurry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's forced to cope with it all on her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave Face

The clock reads half past three in the morning and the only thing she can hear is Ryuho’s congested breathing beside her in the bed. He’s got another cold, the third one this winter, and he hasn’t been able to sit up in bed longer than a few minutes to take the medicine she gives him as often as the label says she can. Every four hours doesn’t seem like enough, not when in between he doesn’t get better, just keeps coughing, the sound getting wetter each time. She’s too worried to sleep.   
  
When she turns just in time to see the time on the clock change, the loneliness hits her hard and fast. She misses his weight sagging his side of the mattress. She misses being able to reach out and touch the long, smooth strands of his hair that would spill across their pillows, intermingling with hers as they lay there next to each other. She misses hearing him breathe, hearing the occasional times when he’d snore, the mumbled phrases she’d catch as he talked in his sleep. She misses being able to nudge him when it was time to give Ryuho another dose of medicine, murmuring that it was his turn to be the attentive parent so she could get another hour of sleep. They hadn’t been able to do that in awhile now, in years, not since Ryuho was so small he still occasionally slept in a crib, when he wasn’t nestled in between them, safely guarded on either side by his parents.   
  
It had been years since the last time she felt whole.   
  
She has dreams sometimes, of how it all could be if things were better. She would wake up in the morning to see him lying next to her, Ryuho draped over his side, having tried to sneak in at some point during the night and only making it halfway before falling back asleep. Eventually, they would all make it out of bed and to the table, where they would sit and talk and laugh while they ate, the house filled with promises of new training, and plans for how to help each other through the day’s chores. Those were dreams she would wake up from before they went much further than that, and part of her was glad, because it was hard enough to accept even that little wasn’t the case, and here was a limit to how much disappointment her heart could take.  
  
Sitting up straight in bed, she checks Ryuho one more time before tucking him more tightly in, hoping he’ll sleep awhile more while she’s out of the room. Moving out from beneath the covers, she grabs the robe she keeps by the bed, putting it on before heading out into the hall, past the bathroom and the kitchen and into yard, pulling on some shoes just before she steps out. It’s freezing, and she’s brought a blanket, the trek from the house out to the cliffs silent save for the crunching of ice and leaves beneath her feet. As she reaches him, she sees the other blanket she left with him earlier has fallen off his shoulders, and she carefully fixes it, before adding the second one on top. The stone beneath him is probably uncomfortable, and cold even with his body heat on top of it, but Seiya promised her he would be alright, that whatever it was that was keeping him here was enough to take care of him, even if she didn’t do what she did. Yet, she still couldn’t accept it like that, she couldn’t just stand idly by and wait and do nothing for him, even if all she did was keep the chill off or hold an umbrella over him so he wouldn’t get soaked in the rain. She was nothing special, she was just a woman who loved him, but that had once been enough before, and maybe, if she kept at it, time would tell her that it could happen again.   
  
White flecks began to land on Shiryu’s dark hair, and she reaches out, gently brushing them aside. “I’ll go find you an umbrella,” she tells him, as if he could hear, but it still felt natural to say it, “I can’t have you getting sick too.”   
  
The faint smile that had come onto her face at her tease suddenly crumples, and she lets out a pained sound as she drops down to her knees. She buries her face in his firm, cold chest, trying to hold back the tears that threaten to fall. His arms are still, unmoving at his side, and she whimpers, unable to hold in the sob that suddenly tears out from her throat. “Shiryu,” she whispers, and her fingers grip the thick blanket on his shoulders, “Shiryu, I miss you so much.”   
  
He doesn’t answer her, he never does. She lets herself cry for a few minutes more before she knows it’s time to stop, forcing to collect herself before she goes back inside and risks Ryuho seeing her so out of control. She has to be strong for him, she has to make him feel safe, and take care of him all by herself until Shiryu can come back and help her out. She just has to endure.   
  
Fixing the blankets once again, she gives him a quick kiss on the cheek before she gets to her feet, heading back into the house to get that umbrella she promised, knowing there would be one by the door as there always was for just such an occasion.   
  
It’s after four by the time she’s back in bed, and she still has another hour until she can give Ryuho another dose of the medication. As she pulls him in closer to her, letting him rest his head against her chest, she thinks that if his fever doesn’t break by tomorrow, she’ll take him down to the doctor, and see if they have anything that will help.  
  
She’s still too worried to sleep.


End file.
